Rating: Summary: Forever Furuba Review: 'Furuba' is how many fans of the anime refer to this series. I became interested in it before I knew they had translated it to English and bought my subtitled DVDs from Hong Kong courtesy of EBay. ;-)
Tohru is an ordinary high school girl with a good heart who tends to see the good in people. This has a tendency to bring out the good in the people she befriends, such as Uo, a former Yankee (gang member) and Hana (troublemaker from another school with the ability to sense things psychically).
Before the beginning of the story, Tohru's mother dies when she's hit by a truck so Tohru goes to live with her paternal grandfather. When her grandfather's house is being remodeled to accommodate still more family, Tohru tells her grandfather that she will be all right and stay with her friends. Still, she knows that Hana has a large family and has no room and Uo has only one small room that she rents and that they really have no room; so she decides on her own to go and live in the woods while the renovations are underway.
After all this is when this charming and engaging story begins. Through a series of misadventures and an accidental discovery, Tohru finds herself earning her keep as a housekeeper for Sohma Shigure rather than sleeping in the forest. Her housemates are Sohma Yuki and Sohma Kyo.
It's not what you're thinking. She discovers a dark family secret of theirs (no, she's not blackmailing them) which enables her to become good friends as well as staying with them until the renovations are complete. You see, when they are hugged by a member of the opposite sex, they turn into animals representing characters from the legend behind the Chinese zodiac. Yuki becomes the rat, Shigure the dog -- and Kyo's the cat who was tricked and then left behind.
The story continues from there as we meet the rest of the members of the Sohma clan, at least the ones most important to the story.
My daughter's disgusted with me but I'm rather fond of the series. At least, she claims to be; but she's looking up newer issues of the manga online. ;-)
Rating: Summary: translations, missing video, etc. Review: Evidently, there are already enough reviews on the content of the DVD, so I shall focus on the disc itself. Firstly, the DVD is double-encoded, which is a nice feature, sporting six episodes per disc. Translation: The Furuba DVD offers translation that is uniquely Japanese -- it retains the -san and -kun prefixes, which is a nice feature. Unfortunately, the text offers a number of grammatical and cultural phrases which go without any explanation, and take away from the experience. Video: The video quality is perfect -- digital DVD quality which is to be expected. Unfortunately, parts of the "episode preview" section have been truncated rather violently, and we are left with periods of black screen where the end of the clip is to be expected. Overall: I feel the DVD is very nice, aside from the technical and grammatical snafus. The absence of any liner notes is troublesome as well. The most troubling aspect of the disc is the fact that the end of the episode preview section has been deleted. Conclusion: Wonderful disc, but keep in mind you will be paying for six episodes, minus parts of the endings which are missing.
Rating: Summary: This series rocks! Review: Fruits basket is a amazing series. Its funny, cool, and there are some seriouse points to it. The best episode was the valentines day episode that was funny. Excellent dubbing to. Note: Yuki sounds like a girl in japanese lol.
Rating: Summary: Straight to the heart Review: Fruits Basket is an anime that you watch with a girlfriend. It's warm, fuzzy, and pink, and it knows this. Not saying it's a bad series, it's very nicely drawn and animated. The story draws you in, and the characters are interesting. The soundtrack is lilting and sweet. Heavily episodic though, there is some character growth, but Honda Tohru is in many ways a flat character, making profound changes upon the lives of others though. It's a good series, one that I would recommend, especially if you want to get your girlfriend into anime.
Rating: Summary: Superb Review: Fruits Basket is quite an interesting anime, at first the show seems to over the top, and can turn off potential viewers with the giant eyes and the crazy fan club girls, but on episode two the show really kicks off, and with the introduction of new characters, each of whom are unique and different in their own way and devolop quite a bit over the course of the series, the show becomes even funnier, as a note Fruits Basket has an amazing dub, for those who like dubs, in fact, most of the time I watch this series dubbed. As a note I consider the Fruits Basket DVDs to be really the first truely amazingly done DVDS, at the time (Or at least to my knowledge) most Anime discs had 2-5 episodes and th only features were textless endings (Can you say crappy and boring?) but Fruits basket has not only previews for other Funimation stuff, but interviews, a documentary of the "eye catches" (Which are explained in the documentry) and even behind the scenes footage. AND 6 episodes per disc, and the disc has 3 regions, any fan of special features would freak out, why the only way they could get any better would be is if it came with a poster or something rather. Overall I suguest Fruits Basket to anyone who is willing to give it a chance, the anime has elements from many genres and is a perfect balance of Comedy and Character devolopment. Buy it today.
Rating: Summary: Superb Review: Fruits Basket is quite an interesting anime, at first the show seems to over the top, and can turn off potential viewers with the giant eyes and the crazy fan club girls, but on episode two the show really kicks off, and with the introduction of new characters, each of whom are unique and different in their own way and devolop quite a bit over the course of the series, the show becomes even funnier, as a note Fruits Basket has an amazing dub, for those who like dubs, in fact, most of the time I watch this series dubbed. As a note I consider the Fruits Basket DVDs to be really the first truely amazingly done DVDS, at the time (Or at least to my knowledge) most Anime discs had 2-5 episodes and th only features were textless endings (Can you say crappy and boring?) but Fruits basket has not only previews for other Funimation stuff, but interviews, a documentary of the "eye catches" (Which are explained in the documentry) and even behind the scenes footage. AND 6 episodes per disc, and the disc has 3 regions, any fan of special features would freak out, why the only way they could get any better would be is if it came with a poster or something rather. Overall I suguest Fruits Basket to anyone who is willing to give it a chance, the anime has elements from many genres and is a perfect balance of Comedy and Character devolopment. Buy it today.
Rating: Summary: Hmm Review: Fruits Basket is the most amazing series ever! I love the dvds and though I have not seen them all I've done my research. Basically Tohru (as we know is living in a tent, moves in- in Shigure's home ladadada) learns more about the Sohma family through Haru and Momiji. Also perhaps slightly through Hatori (I dont know if hes in yet...) but anyways its all as usual sooooooo cute. I love how they develope characters and inner personailtys...I did notice that Akito has no Zodiac animal and my friend gave me a great view to look at him as...Akito represents God, who was the one who invited the animals to the banquet and picked and chose between them?
Rating: Summary: AWESOME!!! Review: I loved this dvd!!!!!!!!!!!! It was the best!!! I cant wait until the 3rd one comes!! I loveed when Yuki kissed the ribbon!! It was so cute!!! This anime is the best! Its not too dramatic and not too cute or overly done!! Its great for people who are just starting to like anime.
Rating: Summary: This series is getting better as it goes on Review: I picked up the first dvd after viewing the preview dvd with the Dragonball GT preview & enjoyed it, but this one was better. Having set up the story on the first dvd, Fruits Basket adds several members of the Sohma family, cursed & not, all who seem to know about Tohru knowing the family secret (major word of mouth?). Haru's probably my fav of those intro'd(cool look, interesting personality), but Hatori's sad & interesting. Momiji's just scary(tooooo cute, but older than he looks/acts). I still like Kyo best & he's developing well on this one. We meet Akito in Hatori's memories & see him hanging on a window sill watching Tohru--forboding enough. At this point he seems the stereotype selfish invalid(like Colin from Secret Garden), thus very threatening as the head of the family with the power to order Tohru's memories erased bt Hatori. My daughter & I died laughing at Shigure teasing his editor over the 500 pages she wanted from him & when he went off to school to pick up Yuki's homework singing "High school girls", we had to back up the dvd to see what we'd missed laughing. This dvd actually gives us a good reason for Tohru needing to be so darn sweet to remain in the Sohma household. The preview is horrible-I can hardly wait 2 mos for the next one to come out to see what they mean about Akito & Tohru.
Rating: Summary: So sweet makes my teeth hurt! Review: I really like this anime, but it is very sweet, and a little sad at times, but I love it! It is funny, cute, sad, and happy all at the same time! I think everyone can find a character that they realte to or admire. It's has really good animation, the music is fun and new, plus it's filled with magic. It's great how all the characters interact together, most are a little over the top, but very entertaining! I recomend and hope you watch and enjoy this anime series!
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